


For those left

by Katherine



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Grief, Post-Serenity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 22:57:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katherine/pseuds/Katherine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Serenity</i> is too small a ship for those left, all hedged in with memories and broken secrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For those left

**Author's Note:**

> After seeing _Serenity_ I got to thinking about who turns to who, and onwards. Originally posted privately, November 2005.

_Serenity_ is too small a ship for those left, all hedged in with memories and broken secrets. Inara's own space in it seems echoing, shorn of her once-familiar draperies and tokens, left with edges of things and a chest of left-behind that Jayne, at the very least, must had rifled through. It's not her own place now, and Inara has tucked herself into one of the plump chairs by the mess area, pretending to read. She's keeping track of the latest shifts in Companion regulations, if anyone asks her, but it doesn't seem anyone on _Serenity_ has much attention to spare.

Kaylee came in loose limbed and bright with success; Simon trailing behind her, stiff-backed, as if he could pass as having spent the hours chastely in his own bunk. As if the entire crew didn't know already, or before. Kaylee snagged supplies from the cupboard; Simon took them from her with at least a veneer of his usual chivalry, and Kaylee was reaching for him with her freed arms before they were quite through the door.

Death scraping by you is a powerful thing.

Inara had last seen Zoe shifting scrap down in the stomach of the ship, tense with her own pretence, and scraped raw underneath. Mal could help her, Inara knew. be war-comrades with her, draw her into splitting a sharp biting drink and reminisce for hours, bleeding out the memories. Take her to bed and drain out hurt in that way, be the strength for her after. He wasn't about to do even the first, with Inara on the ship.

She should put on her Companion mask, breeze through goodbyes with the mention of having clients waiting. The "incense" blew the room, but not her schedule.

Get far enough away to leave Mal able to comfort himself, and Zoe, and keep _Serenity_ flying.


End file.
